Let It Come Down: A Novel

A drifting American bank clerk steps into the corrupt International Zone of Tangier, where every freedom carries a devastating cost.

In Let It Come Down, Paul Bowles plots the doomed trajectory of Nelson Dyar, a New York bank teller who comes to Tangier in search of a different life and ends up giving in to his darkest impulses.

The city’s polyglot enclaves offer Dyar no escape from his internal paralysis, as an unventilated travel agency entangles him in the shadow economy of the Medina.

Bowl...